Template talk:Incomplete list

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Template:Incomplete list is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories.

Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases.

Lists Template‑class

	This template is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.ListsWikipedia:WikiProject ListsTemplate:WikiProject ListsList articles
Template	This template does not require a rating on the project's quality scale.

This template was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:

Keep, 18 July 2005, see discussion.
Keep, 26 February 2005, see discussion.

Archives

Archive 1

Undiscussed change

Requesting revert to this rv to undo an undiscussed revert to the new ambox-small style. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Denied. First get consensus for the undiscussed change. See WP:BRD. Garion96 (talk) 14:24, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See the section above. PBS is the only one disagreeing with the change in question, and as an involved party he shouldn't be editing protected templates to his own version without discussion. I am following BRD - he made a bold move, so it should be reverted until it's discussed. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:10, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No. He reverted my bold move. Discuss comes after Revert in BRD :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:14, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Martin. We had the Bold, then the Revert, now the Discuss. :) I also don't agree with the change. It makes this tag stand out more than is needed. I see this tag as comparible to a stub tag, which luckily also is not in ambox style. Garion96 (talk) 15:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But it's not comparable to a stub tag - it's comparable to {{expand-section}}, which was what the ambox-small style was written for in the first place. We should endeavour to ensure that cleanup templates, where they exist, look like cleanup templates and act like them (by having the appropriate HTML classes). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I think template messages should be kept to a minimum on the actual article. But if they are there, they should be clearly distinguishable from article content. And some consistency with the other message boxes is also good. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:09, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think the statement should remain in its previous short form. It's important that the actual text of in the list states that it's incomplete, rather than a message box that floats around. -- User:Docu

That obviously fails WP:NDA. For the few occasions in which we really need to point out that a list is incomplete, ambox templates are exempted from that guideline. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 07:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain how you think it's "obvious" and when you think we "need"? -- User:Docu

You said that "It's important that the actual text of in the list states that it's incomplete". An in-article warning as to the quality of a section is a disclaimer. Thus, your statement is contradictory to the text of WP:NDA, which says that such things should be avoided except for specific warning, cleanup or temporal templates. As for when we would "need" to point out that a list is incomplete, we would hopefully do so only sparingly, as with other cleanup templates. The purpose of this template is to draw attention to an area which needs improving. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't quite follow your reasoning. Which one of the six elements from Wikipedia:General disclaimer covers the text of this template? -- User:Docu

WP:NDA applies to disclaimers in the general sense of the word, not in the pseudo-legalistic sense of the site's general content disclaimer. A statement such as "this section is incomplete" outwith a cleanup template is a disclaimer. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:40, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, when the page was written, people added various general disclaimers directly in articles, through templates or text in the article, partially because general disclaimers were only being added. WP:NDA means, you can't add a text to the article "This is not advice". As such, it has no relation to this template. -- User:Docu

Chris you an I seem to disagree over what is a disclaimer, as to me whether a list is complete or not is useful information not a disclaimer (or to you is a statement that a list is complete also a disclaimer?). However I am curious to know how you justify the statement "ambox templates are exempted from that guideline". Because you are implying that if a disclaimer is placed in an ambox then it is OK to display it on the page (because for a reader of an article there is no difference in the look of an ambox placed on a page and an ambox in a template). --PBS (talk) 12:59, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is precisly what the introduction to WP:NDA says under the sentence: "There are a few exceptions to this:". Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:10, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Frequent abuse, suggest counter-measures

One of the biggest weaknesses of Wikipedia at the moment is how many authors extend lists (in particular of fictional references) far beyond what is beneficial.

Unfortunately, in my subjective recollection, most uses of this tag that I have seen have been entirely inappropriate---immediately before one of these already-too-long lists. This includes the article on Billy Mays and the list of all products he has promoted (which prompted me to write this comment).

The tag instructions do mention that this tag is for more limited lists and for entries of significance (hypothetically, the seven dwarves of snow-white; but not all dwarves in fiction); however, in the light of this abuse, I urge that greater weight is put on clarifying this. Ideally, the formulation of the displayed tag-text should reflect this too, because many authors will not read further than that.

If technically possible, I would suggest a bot that estimated the size of the list following the tag and gave a warning when a particular number of items was exceeded. Here it will typically be appropriate to replace the tag with one of opposite meaning, e.g. fancruft. 94.220.255.246 (talk) 14:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indent this template

As I had mentioned previously, I believe that this template should be indented, due to a number of reasons. First of all, it is not aesthetically pleasing to see two italicized templates placed one after the other but with different indentation lengths. The second reason is basically the same reason as to why all other italicized templates are indented: it makes the template stand out from the rest of the content, because indeed, the template should not be considered part of an article's content, but rather a road sign of sorts to indicate something to the reader that they should be made aware of. Gary King (talk) 06:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Declined for now. This needs a little more input. Also, could you make a sandbox edit to show how your prefered change would look? Garion96 (talk) 08:43, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The sandbox is at Template:Expand list/sandbox. This is a pretty trivial change; I believe that WP:BRD applies here. This concern was brought up nearly a year ago and there hasn't been a single response besides myself, because this isn't a popular template and because it's such a trivial change. I could bring it to noticeboards like WP:VPT but I don't think it would get much of a response, if any at all; it seems excessively bureaucratic to post a notice to indent some text. Gary King (talk) 17:57, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There has been quite some discussion on this template so it is watched. Nevertheless I did the request since it is not so major. I don't seee much point in it though, see {{stub}} for instance, which is not indented. Garion96 (talk) 18:48, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stub templates usually have images before them so they are essentially indented to separate themselves from surrounding text. In addition, they are placed at the bottom of articles, so there usually aren't any other indented text around them. In comparison, this template is placed at the top of lists and tables, and there are sometimes other notes such as This table is accurate as of January 1, 2009 which are indented so it does not line up with this template. Gary King (talk) 19:46, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Changing appearance to the same as Template:Expand section

This template, Expand list, and Template:Expand section are more or less the same, with a different use. Then, why not to have the same appearance? Why to have this more similar to the stub template? As I have done with Template:Inc-video ([1]) I suggest to change the appearance of this template and its descendants to the one of Template:Expand section. --Tintero (talk) 20:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is meant to be an unobtrusive comment, it should remain as it is a simple italic line of text. The difference between this and {{Expand section}} is that expand section is (hopefully) a temporary addition and is an editorial maintenance template. This template is in many cases a permanent one, because there is no complete list available, and it function is more to warn a reader that the list is not complete than an editorial maintenance template. -- PBS (talk) 21:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Ok. --Tintero (talk) 23:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request from Vanediva, 4 April 2010

Dear Administrator, I have found this page and expected to see more philippine movies registered.

Movies in the 70's "Drama's, Trilogies, Comedies" w/ Vic Vargas, Maureen Avavieira, Dolphy the comedian, Beth Oropesa, Francis Arnaiz and more. Can you register movies made by the above actors and actresses? Thank you.Vanediva (talk) 19:43, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Vanediva (talk) 19:43, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: Please find the article where you saw this notice and add the film there. This message only says that a list is incomplete. The lists should be updated in the article itself. (Request closed by non-admin) --The Evil IP address (talk) 21:02, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request from 83.221.140.244, 6 May 2010

{{editprotected}} An article like List of unrecovered flight recorders (perma-link) looks wrong because of this template. The problem is the indentation that is done with the colon ':' in the beginning of the template. You must insert a new-line character at the very end of this template to prevent this problem.

83.221.140.244 (talk) 09:46, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I tried adding the line break but for some reason that didn't stop the incorrect indentation. So I have removed the indentation for now, until we can work out the correct way to do this. Maybe a margin can be added to the div instead. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Martin. It appears that beginning the lede with a link, as is done in that article above, has something to do with the incorrect lede indentation that follows this template. It seems pretty weird, and I don't know if it's something about this template or something about Wikilinks that causes it. If you precede the link with regular text, the problem goes away.

— Paine (Ellsworth's Climax) 12:51, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{editprotected}} Okay, I have figured out that the problem is with this template. Because the command at the end to add a hidden category to the article page is not within the <div></div> tags, this causes the indent-following on any article page that begins with a Wikilink. So the </div> has to be moved to after that hidden category command. I have done this in the {{Expand list/sandbox}}, so the code from that page can just be copied and pasted to the main template page. (The /doc page is included, and I've added the colon to indent the template as seen on the {{Expand list/testcases}} page.)
— Paine (Ellsworth's Climax) 11:11, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Well done for working this out. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:19, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that was a gnarly problem. I see you switched the {{#ifeq... to {{cat handler.... Good call– Thank you very much!

— Paine (Ellsworth's Climax) 11:29, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Message box or icon

{{Editprotected}}

Similar template {{Expand section}} has message box as well as wiki tile icon.

This template lacks both, at least icon should be added otherwise it will confuse with actual content. Edit/cleanup messages need to be separated from actual encyclopedic content. An icon should do if message box looks to be too much. Doorvery far (talk) 06:19, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have disabled your request for now as this will need discussing. This has been proposed several times in the past but so far no consensus has been reached (see other discussion on this page and the archive). I for one favour the clear separation between article content and cleanup messages and support this idea. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:45, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't. With some articles this template will be there indefinitely, it doesn't need to stand out. Besides, this template is similar to {{stub}} which also doesn't has an icon and message box. Garion96 (talk) 12:48, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's the strongest argument against boxing this template, and I agree with it. I don't think this template should be boxed since it may appear indefinitely in some articles. Gary King (talk · scripts) 15:32, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How'bout this, without lines? That is just adding an icon at start:

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

I too dont like boxing which i made obvious in my previous suggestion comment. Stub template comes at the end of an article, not in between article content, hence doesnt need a "differentiator" after all! Doorvery far (talk) 04:43, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding stubs, the fact that they come in at the end of articles doesn't matter much IMO. Without a box, and sometimes without an icon, I find that they tend to blend in to the article. The icon that you suggest, I believe, existed before in this template and then was later removed. Again, considering the fact that this template will remain indefinitely in most articles, I don't think an image, colors, etc. should be included. Gary King (talk · scripts) 05:12, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with User:Gary King -- PBS (talk) 07:40, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Currently being in italics serves as differentiator, which i feel is not enough. You cant compare this with stub template which is at footer which hardly will have any actual article content like references, see-alsos etc. If you oppose icon and colors, then we can reduce font size to 0.85em?

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

That would look good both in web articles as well as printable version, and this method used in many templates. For example {{Expand section}} which i transcluded above has font size "smaller" transcluded from {{ambox}} and there {{small}}Doorvery far (talk) 10:55, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]